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Oil Pipeline From Kazakstan Fields To Black Sea Port Is Completed

MOSCOW, RUSSIA — An international consortium said Wednesday it had completed construction of an oil pipeline connecting petroleum fields in western Kazakstan to a Russian Black Sea port.

The 948-mile pipeline will deliver its first oil from the Tengiz fields to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in mid-2001, said Natalia Prutkovskaya, a spokeswoman for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. The line is expected to ship 600,000 barrels a day--a big boost to the exports of Kazakstan, which is believed to have the region's largest deposits.

The U.S. has been pushing for another line to be the main route for oil from the Caspian Sea. Officials say the 1,080-mile line between Baku, Azerbaijan, and Ceyhan, Turkey, could be finished as early as 2004.